


The First Time

by Josselin



Series: Blood [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, vampire!Laurent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 02:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15653451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: The first time that Laurent bit Nikandros.





	The First Time

The first days left no time for thinking. Laurent had been a font of orders. Bring a pallet. Fetch a physician. Not that physician, the Veretian physician. Laurent directed the physicians in the same commanding tone, then turned back to Nikandros. Laurent had a list of seven steps to secure the city, four preparations for regional resistance and a reminder to send a messenger to Karthas about the battle. Kastor’s body should be placed under guard. Laurent’s orders were logical and thorough and commanding, and Nikandros found himself following them despite himself, even kneeling in front of Laurent to take the position as Kyros of Ios. 

Late evening was their first moment alone. They were conducting business in the King’s antechamber, because Paschal had banished them from Damen’s bedroom to preserve his rest and yet neither of them wanted to travel very far from Damen’s side. Both Laurent and Nikandros happened to dismiss their people at the same moment, sending them off with orders, and when the door closed behind them it was quiet. 

Nikandros and Laurent made eye contact across the antechamber. Nikandros felt oddly cognizant of the time and that it was the middle of the night. Theomedes had once told Nikandros something about Veretians being dangerous at night and Nikandros hadn’t listened. Veretians were dangerous all of the time, Nikandros thought, and Theomedes was known for saying things about Vere that were more based in his personal prejudice than they were in fact. 

Nikandros reconsidered. He looked at Laurent. Laurent was wearing the ripped and dirty chiton he’d been taken prisoner in at the Kingsmeet. It was covered in blood. The blood had turned his clothing a rust brown and there were stains on his arms and his legs. Most of it was probably Damen’s blood, Nikandros assumed, though some of it might have been Kastor’s. Nikandros hadn’t been privy to the final battle, only the aftermath, so only Laurent would know. Nikandros didn’t ask. 

Laurent was looking back at him. He looked oddly young. His eyes were wide open and his pupils were very dark. There was something terrifying about his gaze. Nikandros wanted to flee. He tried to reason with himself. Laurent wasn’t even armed, and Nikandros himself was wearing a sword in a sheath on his belt. It didn’t change the fear he felt.

Laurent looked away first. He turned toward the connecting door to Damen's bedroom. His gaze became longing. 

Laurent said, “I--” and he nodded toward Damen’s door, and then Laurent walked that direction.

Nikandros felt unaccountably like he should do something. The thought of Laurent alone in the darkness with Damen was more terrifying than the thought of himself alone in the darkness with Laurent. Damen was unconscious and defenseless. 

Laurent did not wait on Nikandros’s hesitations, and opened the door to Damen’s room. The door closed behind him. Nikandros was alone.

Laurent’s behavior had not welcomed company or further interruption. Nikandros tried to rationalize this to himself. Damen had been alone with Laurent before. He had been alone with Laurent many times. He had chosen it; he had welcomed it. Damen had arranged specifically to be alone with Laurent. Laurent had spent the last days seeming genuinely interested in Damen’s survival. Laurent had worked just as hard as Nikandros himself to save Damen. It would have been counterproductive for him to have done so only to wish Damen ill when he had him alone. 

Nikandros’s rationalizations still did not permit him any rest. He continued attending to kingdom business. When he saw Laurent the following day, Laurent was washed of the blood and seemed slightly more composed wearing clean Veretian clothes. Nikandros found himself relaxing, slightly. Laurent did not seem so dangerous in the daytime. 

Two more days passed. Nikandros only encountered Laurent in the daytime. Nikandros worked next to Laurent the following day until mid-afternoon, when Nikandros collapsed into his own bed, having spent more than two days awake. When Nikandros awoke and returned to Damen’s antechamber it was morning again.

That evening, the two of them ended up visiting Damen together. Paschal stepped away from Damen’s bedside to prepare more salve, and the two of them were admitted. Damen was lying in bed. He looked tired. There were lines on his forehead from the pain. But he was awake and he was speaking with them and when he spoke he was lucid and himself. 

Laurent perched lightly on the bed next to him, close enough to touch him though they were not actually touching. Laurent wore black Veretian riding clothes. They seemed to Nikandros very impractical for the weather in Ios, but in the middle of the night they made Laurent seem like a shadow with his fair hair and face a silver moon of light on the top.

Nikandros stood a few feet from the bed. He’d been giving Damen a report, and Damen had paid careful attention. Nikandros finished. There was a moment of quiet. The feeling came over Nikandros again, the same feeling as had washed over him a few nights prior when he had been alone with Laurent in the darkness. He again had a significant awareness of Laurent’s position in the room even though his eyes had been on Damen while he delivered his report. Nikandros had a new noticing of the darkness of the room, the shadows cast by Damen’s candle, and the position of the moon in the sky out of the window. Nikandros felt aware of how close Laurent was to Damen. 

It unsettled him. He would have felt better if Laurent were further away from Damen. It was hard to explain to himself why he felt this way. Laurent wasn’t doing anything, just sitting, still, on Damen’s bed. He had one foot underneath him and he had been listening to Nikandros’s report with his head cocked. 

Nikandros has wanted Laurent further away from Damen from the moment he first met him. He wants him away from Damen even more now. He couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “He is too weak for you too--”

Laurent turned his gaze on Nikandros. Nikandros did not know how to finish. He knew that Laurent bit Damen; he had seen the scars. Damen knew that it happened, the two of them had spoken of it. Laurent obviously knew. And yet to put words to the practice seemed too barbarous, too cruel. Nikandros trailed off. 

Laurent’s look was dismissive. It managed to convey doubt and question Nikandros’s intelligence simultaneously. 

Nikandros bristled. 

“Are you volunteering yourself?” said Laurent. His tone was dry.

Nikandros swallowed, hard. 

He wanted to say no. He had told Damen once, after Damen had denied him the satisfaction of dueling Laurent for the injuries Laurent had done Damen, that if Laurent ever tried to bite Nikandros, that Nikandros was going to kill him. He still felt the same.

But he would rather it were him than Damen. He would rather that in general. At any time when there was blood to be spilled, Nikandros would rather his own than Damen’s. He felt particularly so right now, when he had come so close to losing Damen again. 

Nikandros didn’t think that Laurent would have gone to the lengths that he had to save Damen only to kill him. But Nikandros had seen the scars on Damen’s neck. Those scars weren’t made by someone--something--behaving rationally. Those scars were the result of rage or loss of self control. Damen was so weak that all it would take was slightly too much. 

Nikandros was not certain what happened to Laurent if he did not have blood. Did he starve, like a man without food? Die? Fade away? Turn into a bat? Become like a feral animal?

What would happen to the Veretian army if their Prince were suddenly incapacitated? Nikandros confronted the fact that he needed Laurent. He needed Damen emotionally. He felt that losing his friend yet again would be the most that he could take. Yet he needed Laurent logically. Laurent was the one who was able to issue calm orders that kept the kingdom under control. 

Nikandros replied. “If you--” he began. He trailed off. 

Laurent raised a questioning eyebrow. 

“Yes,” Nikandros said simply.

Damen was watching all of this unfold from the bed. To Laurent, Damen said, “Don’t torture him.”

Nikandros heard this. He shivered, imagining what Damen knew that caused him to give that warning. 

Laurent’s tone was light, when he replied. “This was his idea.”

“He is only trying to--” said Damen.

Laurent smiled at Damen indulgently and rolled his eyes. “You’re dismissed,” he said, to Nikandros, and followed it with, “I promise I am not going to eat Damen.”

Nikandros walked out of the King’s chambers slowly.

He could not have described how he felt as he did so. 

Another day went by before the longest day and a half yet. There was a coup in the palace. Laurent’s shoulder was wrenched during the fighting. He cried out at the injury and held himself gingerly afterward. 

The coup was dealt with, and then they dispensed justice to the traitors, and then Laurent oversaw the executions--still holding his shoulder carefully--and then Nikandros and Laurent learned that Damen had taken a fever.

Laurent’s shoulder went untended because neither of them were willing to divert Paschal’s attention from Damen’s side. Paschal told them nonsense about Damen’s strength and the power of the salves he was preparing, but Nikandros had seen strong men felled by fever before. He had seen men die when their wounds turned sour.

Laurent said, “My mother died of fever.”

Then they said nothing more and sat in Damen’s chambers as though by being closer to him they could loan him their strength. 

Paschal eventually banished them to the antechamber again. 

It was the same as before. They were standing across the room from each other again. It was the same time of the night. They were alone.

Laurent had blood on him again. The blood this time was from the fighting that had erupted during the coup. They could hear Damen in his bedchamber, mumbling with fevered dreams. 

Nikandros thought about the coup and about Damen’s illness. He thought about the guard. What would happen among the men if it were known that the King were so unwell? What would happen among the men if the King fell? There were no other relations of King Theomedes to claim to the throne, would one of Eradne’s cousins make a claim? Would Vere?

Nikandros said, “Perhaps we should discuss what happens if--”

Laurent looked over at him. Laurent’s eyes were wild. 

“I can’t,” said Laurent. His voice broke as he spoke.

Nikandros waited. He knew Laurent, now. He waited for the reason. There would be some explanation for why it was foolish to think of planning for that possibility. Or there would be a list of calm commands of what they must do instead. 

Laurent did not offer a reason. He shifted restlessly. His movements reminded Nikandros of a snake. He was still one moment and sinuous the next.

“I can’t think--” said Laurent after another moment. His voice broke again. Nikandros realized that was the explanation.

Nikandros became aware that Laurent’s eyes had settled on his neck. Laurent had been looking him in the eye a moment before. Nikandros had missed the moment that Laurent’s gaze shifted. Now Laurent’s eyes were firmly fixed on his neck. The hair on the back of Nikandros’s neck prickled. 

“Did you mean--” said Laurent. Somehow Nikandros understood what he was asking. He understood that this was a reference back to the previous night they had been with Damen, when Nikandros had been afraid and Laurent had just been toying with him. 

Then, it had been about Damen. Nikandros had been thinking about Damen, worried about Damen, when he had made the offer. 

Now, it was not about Damen. Nikandros was not afraid that Laurent was going to bite Damen while he was dying of a fever. The fear that had driven Nikandros to offer to save his King was gone. 

Now, it was only about Laurent, with his wild eyes and his broken, “I can’t think--” and about Nikandros himself, trying to prevent the downfall of the kingdom. 

“Yes,” said Nikandros. 

Nikandros wasn’t sure how it was going to happen. 

A beat passed after he said yes and nothing changed. Nikandros was surprised. He had expected somehow that before the “Yes” had fully left his mouth that Laurent would have performed another of those snake-like movements and have ended clinging to Nikandros’s throat like a leech. Nikandros hadn’t expected to have any choice about how it happened beyond agreeing that it could happen. 

Now he wasn’t sure what to think. Laurent was just waiting, after Nikandros has already said yes. Nikandros started to think about how he would prefer to be bitten. He would rather not have Laurent attached to his neck like a leech. He would rather not have Laurent that close to him at all. He decided to shape how this unfolded by holding out his arm. He tilted the inside of his wrist toward Laurent across the room, making it an offering.

Laurent’s eyes shifted from his neck to meet his eyes. Their gazes held each other's for a moment. Then Nikandros could see Laurent’s eyes shift to his wrist. He wondered suddenly if Laurent’s vision was like his own vision or different. Laurent was looking at his wrist in a way that implied there was something more there that he could see than what Nikandros himself could see. 

Then Laurent took a step forward, toward him. 

Laurent’s eyes flicked to his and then to his wrist again. Nikandros kept his arm extended. 

Laurent took another two steps, very rapidly, and suddenly he was touching Nikandros. 

Nikandros thought to himself, “It hurts less than I expected,” before he realized that Laurent had not bitten him yet.

Laurent had reached up to delicately take Nikandros’s hand and arm in his own hands, and he was holding Nikandros’s wrist to his face. His lips were pressed against Nikandros’s wrist. But the reason it did not hurt was that all he had done so far was to press his lips there like the most chaste of kisses.

Then, he parted his lips, and bit.

Nikandros thought to himself, “It hurts exactly as much as I expected.”

Nikandros bore the pain without flinching. He watched as Laurent sucked at the wound. Laurent’s eyelashes fluttered shut. Nikandros’s eyes stayed wide open. 

Nikandros wondered if he would have to stop this. If he would need to break it off at some point before he began to feel weak. And if he did need to stop it, how would he do so? Could he speak to Laurent and expect Laurent to listen? Would he need to draw his wrist away? What if Laurent fixed his teeth into Nikandros’s flesh and refused to let go?

Nikandros’s fears were not realized. Before he had made any decisions or even begun to feel weak, Laurent raised his head.

Laurent met Nikandros’s eyes. Laurent’s eyes were less wild now. Laurent was standing more naturally, as though his shoulder no longer pained him. Laurent held Nikandros’s gaze evenly, and then Laurent glanced down to Nikandros’s wrist, where two final drops of blood had welled up. Laurent lapped them up delicately, like a cat. Then he let go of Nikandros’s arm. Nikandros let his arm lower gracelessly to his side.

“We are not going to discuss things which are never going to happen,” said Laurent, continuing Nikandros’s earlier conversation as though the entire interlude had never happened. As though he had never looked at Nikandros wildly. His voice had never broken. His shoulder had never hurt. His lips were very red now, though, or Nikandros might think that he had imagined it.

“Tell me of Periklis,” Laurent said instead, naming the commander of the Akielon garrison. “Is he loyal?”

Nikandros ignored the lingering throb of his wrist. Their talk returned to business.


End file.
